Motivational Quotes

Past

It is not the literal past that rules us, save, possibly, in a biological sense. It is images of the past. Each new historical era mirrors itself in the picture and active mythology of its past or of a past borrowed from other cultures. It tests its sense of identity, of regress or new achievement against that past.

- Steiner, George

Best Quotes about Past

A lot of people go through life like they are rowing a boat. They look at where they have been (the PAST) rather than where they are going (the FUTURE).

We live in a world where amnesia is the most wished-for state. When did history become a bad word?

Guare, John

The past is only the present become invisible and mute; and because it is invisible and mute, its memorized glances and its murmurs are infinitely precious. We are tomorrow's past.

Webb, Mary

Yesterday is a canceled check: Forget it. Tomorrow is a promissory note: Don't count on it. Today is ready cash: Use it!

Bliss, Edwin C.

We are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4am of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget.

Didion, Joan

It is one thing to learn about the past; it is another to wallow in it.

Auchincloss, Kenneth

The moments of the past do not remain still; they retain in our memory the motion which drew them towards the future, towards a future which has itself become the past, and draw us on in their train.

Proust, Marcel

It's linkage I'm talking about, and harmonies and structures, And all the various things that lock our wrists to the past.

Wright, Charles

Your past is important, but it is not nearly as important to your present as the way you see your future.

Campolo, Tony

10.

If you must cry over spilled milk then please try to condense it

11.

The past does not equal the future.

Robbins, Anthony

12.

Because men really respect only that which was founded of old and has developed slowly, he who wants to live on after his death must take care not only of his posterity but even more of his past.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

13.

To design the future effectively, you must first let go of your past.

Givens, Charles J.

14.

As lousy as things are now, tomorrow they will be somebody's good old days.

Barzan, Gerald

15.

Many are always praising the by-gone time, for it is natural that the old should extol the days of their youth; the weak, the time of their strength; the sick, the season of their vigor; and the disappointed, the spring-tide of their hopes.

Bingham, Caleb

16.

It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.

17.

The next day is never so good as the day before.

Syrus, Publilius

18.

The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.

King Jr. Martin Luther

19.

Every journey into the past is complicated by delusions, false memories, false namings of real events.

Rich, Adrienne

20.

If the only new thing we have to offer is an improved version of the past, then today can only be inferior to yesterday. Hypnotized by images of the past, we risk losing all capacity for creative change.

Hewison, Robert

21.

It is not the literal past, the facts of history, that shape us, but images of the past embodied in language.

Friel, Brian

22.

We do NOT know the past in chronological sequence. It may be convenient to lay it out anesthetized on the table with dates pasted on here and there, but what we know we know by ripples and spirals eddying out from us and from our own time.

Pound, Ezra

23.

I love my past, I love my present. I am not ashamed of what I have had, and I am not sad because I no longer have it.

Colette, Sidonie Gabrielle

24.

The rewards in life go to those who are willing to give up the past

25.

They spend their time looking forward to the past.

Osborne, John

26.

While I take inspiration from the past, like most Americans, I live for the future.

Reagan, Ronald

27.

To be able to look back upon one's past life with satisfaction is to live twice.

Martial, Marcus Valerius

28.

Mr. Meant-to has a friend, his name is Didn't-Do. Have you met them? They live together in a house called Never-Win. And I am told that it is haunted by the Ghost of Might-have-Been.

Collins, Marva

29.

That though the radiance which was once so bright be now forever taken from my sight. Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower. We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind.

Wordsworth, William

30.

If you're still hanging onto a dead dream of yesterday, laying flowers on its grave by the hour, you cannot be planting the seeds for a new dream to grow today.

Chapman, Joyce

31.

The past, though it cannot be relived, can always be repaired.

La Farge, John

32.

Losers live in the past. Winners learn from the past and enjoy working in the present toward the future.

Waitley, Denis

33.

There is a way to look at the past. Don't hide from it. It will not catch you -- if you don't repeat it.

Bailey, Pearl

34.

The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

Einstein, Albert

35.

The people who get into trouble in our company are those who carry around the anchor of the past.

Welch, John

36.

The beauty of the past is that it is the past. The beauty of the now is to know it. The beauty of the future is to see where one is going.

37.

The historian looks backward. In the end he also believes backward.

Fredrich

38.

The Past -- the dark unfathomed retrospect! The teeming gulf --the sleepers and the shadows! The past! the infinite greatness of the past! For what is the present after all but a growth out of the past?

Whitman, Walt

39.

In the maxim of the past you cannot go anywhere.

Gorky, Maxim

40.

Every man is his own ancestor, and every man his own heir. He devises his own fortune, and he inherits his own past.

Hedge, Francis Herbert

41.

The good of other times let people state; I think it lucky I was born so late.

Ovid

42.

The past should be a springboard, not a hammock.

Ball, Ivern

43.

Things without remedy, should be without regard; what is done, is done.

Shakespeare, William

44.

Who so desireth to know what will be hereafter, let him think of what is past, for the world hath ever been in a circular revolution; whatsoever is now, was heretofore; and things past or present, are no other than such as shall be again: Redit orbis in orbem.

Raleigh, Sir Walter

45.

One must always maintain one's connection to the past and yet ceaselessly pull away from it. To remain in touch with the past requires a love of memory. To remain in touch with the past requires a constant imaginative effort.

Bachelard, Gaston

46.

Living in the past has one thing going for it; it's cheaper!

Saying

47.

Nostalgia is a seductive liar.

Ball, George W.

48.

The past is all holy to us; the dead are all holy; even they that were wicked when alive.

Carlyle, Thomas

49.

Clogged with yesterday's excess, the body drags the mind down with it.